Le Maschere
by Faikitty
Summary: In trying to protect others from yourself, you hurt everyone involved. A story of how Hirato and Akari's true relationship began. Hirato/Akari.


It's rare for Hirato to wake up and still have Akari asleep in his bed.

Still, he doesn't mind. Akari's beautiful, long lashes and smooth, pale skin lit by the early morning light is a wonderful sight to wake up to. Hirato can't resist running a thumb over the doctor's barely open lips and brushing a hand across his cheek. Unsurprisingly, such movement makes Akari stir slightly, and his eyes open slowly and sleepily.

"Good morning, Sleeping Beauty," Hirato whispers in a quiet tease. Akari closes his eyes again with a yawn and tugs the covers up over his head. Hirato can't help but find it odd; normally the other man rises immediately and purposefully, no doubt with thoughts of surgeries and medical terminology in his brain.

"What time is it?" asks a muffled voice from beneath the blanket.

Hirato looks curiously at the Akari-shaped lump. "It's still fairly early. It's only 5."

Akari shifts slightly and moves the covers down to his chest. "Not early enough," the doctor says with a sigh. He swings his legs out of the bed and sits on the edge for a moment. It's just long enough of a pause for Hirato to grow concerned.

"Are you sick?"

Akari glances over his shoulder. "No, I'm not sick." Hirato watches as he stands and gathers his clothes. His white button up shirt is all that he currently wears, going down to his upper thigh, and the captain smirks with satisfaction of his work last night at the sight of the small bruises on the other man's legs. As Akari dresses, Hirato slides out of bed and comes up behind the doctor to drape his arms over his shoulders.

"What's bothering you then?" Hirato asks quietly with a nip on Akari's ear.

Akari shivers slightly at the touch and turns, grabbing hold of Hirato's arms and lowering them. "I think we should date," he says, looking directly into Hirato's eyes.

Hirato's mind goes blank, and he blinks a few times. "Pardon?"

"We should date. Officially. Our relationship as it is now is… unsatisfying. It isn't that I want our relationship to become public, since that would harm both of us. It would just give me peace of mind if we—"

"No."

Hirato's refusal is so blunt that Akari is visibly taken back. "Care to explain?"

Hirato gazes at the other man with something akin to contempt. "I believe you're overestimating my feelings for you. _I have none_. This is just sex. Nothing more. I don't love you, Akari-san."

Akari steps back as if he has been slapped. "You—" He studies Hirato's face, and his eyes grow cold at the lack of emotion there. "Don't you dare call on me again," he says flatly. He grabs his coat from a chair and leaves in a flurry, slamming the door harder than necessary behind him.

Hirato's expression remains passive as he lies back down in his bed, despite the fact that the room seems to be spinning. The room seems far emptier without Akari in it, and Hirato has never realized how preposterously huge his bed is until now. It will be difficult to fall asleep without a warm body next to him, but he doesn't really feel like following in Tsukitachi's footsteps of taking a different woman to bed each night.

He would rather have Akari.

Hirato has been aware of his affinity for self-sabotage for many years, but it's never been quite to this extent. His skills at manipulation even apply to lying to himself, and he's always able to convince himself he has made the right choice.

This time, too, it's for the best. If Circus were to find out about his nightly meetings with their precious SSS doctor, there would be hell to pay. His and Akari's personalities clashed as well, and a relationship such as theirs is horrifyingly unhealthy for both parties. There's also the complication of their both being men.

Above all though, Hirato's main rationale for refusing Akari is his blood-stained hands. Akari has been bloodied before too, but not in the way Hirato's has. Akari has never stood coldly above the body of a once-living human who he killed despite her desperate pleas to be spared. He has never felt the life go out of the body of a man who he strangled with his bare hands.

Emotions, particularly _love_, have no place in the life of a soldier.

Hirato rises from the bed, stretches, and wanders over to the bathroom. He gazes at his reflection in the mirror, the hard line of his jaw, the perpetual dark circles beneath his eyes, the myriad of scars on his tanned skin.

He draws his hand into a fist and slams it against the mirror.

Probably not his best idea.

The pain takes a few seconds to set in, and until it does, he just watches the dark blood drip around glass shards in his hand. He's never been prone to senseless violence, and never has he caused _physical_ harm to himself. Adrenaline, confusion, reason, and apathy war against one another in his head until reason pulls through victorious.

Bloody hands. The irony isn't lost on him as he hurriedly wraps a towel around his bleeding limb.

* * *

"…so you punched a mirror?"

Hirato glares at Tsukitachi with eyes that are too tired to be intimidating. Going to see the 1st Ship's captain was probably a bad plan, given that Tsukitachi is almost definitely going to try to get him back together with Akari. For now, at least, Tsukitachi is distracted by the hilarity of Hirato injuring himself in such an idiotic way. He holds Hirato's heavily bandaged hand in his, examining the damage done.

"Not the best idea, I know," Hirato acknowledges. He flinches as the other man pokes at the gauze bandages on his hand, and he snatches it back. "Are you trying to hurt me worse?"

Tsukitachi gives him a lopsided grin. "I'm just wondering how the great Hirato could have lost to a mirror."

"And I'm wondering how the great Tsukitachi could use such a cliché line as that," Hirato throws back halfheartedly.

"I'm surprised Akari-chan was willing to treat you after you shot him down like that."

"He didn't. One of the nurses did," Hirato corrects. "That's why it hurts so much. The stitches were done so sloppily I would have been better off doing it myself." He shifts to one side of the couch as Tsukitachi plops down beside him, narrowly missing his injured hand.

"You know, if Akari-chan were still speaking to you, he would have stitched you up."

"If Akari-san were still speaking to me, I wouldn't have _needed_ stitches."

Tsukitachi tilts his head in acknowledgement, and his eyes narrow. "You should go apologize," he says quietly.

Hirato lifts a brow at the other man. "You know I can't do that."

"Then just go _talk_ to him. He'll listen. He has to."

"He would. But I won't." Hirato suddenly regrets coming, and he stands. "This conversation is over." Really, he should have been smart enough not to come here in the first place. He doesn't know what he was expecting to begin with.

A hand grabs him and spins him around, pulling him forward by his tie. "Stop being so god damn stubborn," Tsukitachi hisses through his teeth, mere inches from Hirato's face with his eyes fixed on the other man's. "You lie all the time. You hurt others. You hurt yourself. I am _not_ letting you fuck up the only good thing that has happened to you in years. You don't love him? Hah! If Akari likes you enough that he wants to be in a proper relationship with you, he's a better man than I am. Because I can't imagine why anyone would want to date someone like you. You can't even admit to _yourself_ that you love Akari. Because someone like you, well, you can't feel emotions like love, right?"

Tsukitachi has never had a problem saying what everyone else was thinking or putting into words what others are feeling, but it still stings like hell for the recipient of his words. For Hirato, though, it finally breaks through a wall of denial. When Tsukitachi releases him, Hirato sits back down, and the other man joins him on the couch again.

"You think you're protecting Akari-chan, don't you? You can't tell that you hurt him worse with such a refusal than he would ever have been hurt with you," Tsukitachi murmurs.

"That's not true," Hirato replies softly. _He'll get hurt, and badly_.

Tsukitachi leans back and traces the cracks on the ceiling with his eyes. "I think that should be up to him."

* * *

When Hirato quietly sneaks into Akari's room at night, he expects the doctor to be asleep. It will be romantic. He will snuggle in against the other man's back and whisper sweet nothings in his ear. It will be emotional and Akari will be beautiful.

He does _not_ expect him to be awake and still filling out paperwork at 3 in the morning.

Both men freeze at the sight of one another. Akari moves first, and a slap rings out so loudly that Hirato wouldn't be surprised if everyone within fifty feet woke up at the sound.

"I told you not to call on me again. I'm not going to continue to have sex with you, not when you're—" The doctor breaks off with a choked noise as Hirato kisses him, pushing him back until they fall in a pile on the bed. "Get off of me," Akari hisses, too weak to get out from under Hirato, who doesn't intend to move. "If I have to have Circus increase security on me to keep you out of my room, I will."

Hirato sits up, keeping Akari pinned down by sitting on his hips with his good hand pressed against his chest. He watches the other man struggle beneath him before finally giving up, panting and gazing at Hirato with barely concealed pain in his eyes. "If I let you up, you have to promise not to run, call security, or hurt me," Hirato tells him, and Akari sighs a very long sigh and nods.

"Fine. I promise."

Hirato moves to Akari's side, still sitting in the bed but no longer on Akari. The doctor takes a pillow in his arms, holding it defensively to his body, and despite everything, Hirato is struck by how cute it is.

"What the hell do you want?" Akari growls, and the cuteness disappears. Then he blinks and stares at Hirato's hand. "What the hell did you _do_?"

Ah. So the cuteness returns. Of course Akari is still concerned for him, even now. But that's part of what draws Hirato to him. "I punched a mirror," Hirato says, and Akari nods with a slightly dazed expression.

"Of course." The defensiveness returns to Akari's voice in a rush. "You never said what you're doing here."

Hirato takes a long breath. It isn't in his nature (or even in his abilities) to apologize. "I may have underestimated my, ah… feelings," he murmurs, and damn it, he's said lies like this a hundred times, so why is it so much more difficult when it's the truth?

Akari's expression borders on hopeful, but his eyes remain guarded. "What of it? You made yourself perfectly clear before. 'I don't love you,'" Akari repeats.

"About that. I… was wrong," Hirato admits. Before Akari has a chance to speak, he hurries on. "I agree that we should date. Officially."

"Officially?"

"Officially."

"No more attempts to protect me from you?"

"No more."

"Good."

Akari releases the pillow in exchange for Hirato, tugging the captain toward him and kissing him with soft lips. His body is familiar as it presses against Hirato's skin, but there's no heat in the kiss or the contact. Not this time. It's a gentle warmth instead, a quiet whisper instead of a moan. When they break apart for a breath, their foreheads remain together, eyes soft.

"Say it then," Akari murmurs, pressing his lips barely against Hirato's, and the captain can feel him smile. "Tell me." Hirato closes his eyes.

"I love you."

* * *

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A/N: Probably a bit out of character. But I've been wanting to write an official start to Hirato and Akari's relationship for awhile now, and since one of my friend's asked for something similar to this for her birthday, this happened. I understand it's rather cheesy, but I'm an American; we love cheese. This applies to both the food and literature. So, I hope you enjoyed this, cheesy or not.


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